The following how-to explains how to speed up linux in general and will work on all distributions of SLES/SLED and Suse pro versions.
Optimize swap
If you have more than 1 gig of ram on your linux machine, probably half the time opening apps is wasted using swap space when it shouldn't. Try doing the following:
1. Open an xterm window.
2. su to the root user.
3. Enter the following:
sysctl -w vm.swappiness=10
# This should take effect immediately, what it does is reduce swapping on the linux system and should see some improvement.
# Create a new file called /etc/sysctl.conf.
# Then edit the /etc/sysctl.conf and add the following line at the very end:
vm.swappiness=10 to /etc/sysctl.conf
Optimize drive access
1. Open an xterm window.
2. su to the root user
3. Enter the following:
hdparm -d 1 -c 1 /dev/hda (where hda is the harddrive)
# The line above sets the dma to on, and the second line turns on 32-bit access.
# Now try running the following:
hdparm -t /dev/hda
# This gives the speed of the harddrive access
# If you are satisfied with the results, edit the /etc/boot.local file and put in the following lines:
hdparm -d 1 -c 1 /dev/hda
Optimize OpenOffice
1. Start up the OpenOffice writer application.
2. Next, open the Tools drop-down menu and select options.
3. Expand OpenOffice.org on the left and select Memory.
4. Change the default values under the Graphics cache for Use for OpenOffice.org to 128MB. and Memory per Object to 20MB.
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